By the Marketing Team at InteractOne
A Strong Customer Following Equals eCommerce Success
It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day tasks of maintaining your Magento website, managing inventory, and coming up with new sales and marketing initiatives. Although, it’s important to take a step back, not only to keep your sanity and perspective, but to focus on long term goals. Building your brand and a strong customer following is an important long-term investment in your business.
Brand building tools can easily be implemented through your Magento site that can help achieve customer loyalty, connections, and define your target audience. Building your brand and customer following needs to be part of your long term marketing strategy. Loyal (aka repeat) customers are critical for your success on Magento and in eCommerce. Here are our 3 reasons why Magento merchants need to build their brand and customer following.
1. Loyal Customers = Repeat Customers
A brand builds loyalty not by only driving sales transactions, but by helping people meet their needs. Merchants build that trust through consistently meeting the needs of their customers. A user-friendly website, quality products and service makes brands dependable. In today’s world, customers are losing patience with marketing that makes promises but does not deliver. They want real value, not just perceived value. Merchants need to stay engaged with their customers throughout the purchase cycle and beyond to build a strong customer following. Magento merchants can build trust into their marketing strategy through features available via the platform or extensions. Tools like rewards programs, strategic email campaigns and social share features will help develop a loyal following that will only grow. Loyalty is the goal – trust is how you build it.
2. Connected customers = Happy Customers
A strong connection with your customer breaks down barriers that leave them feeling like they are just a number. When you’re connected to your customers, you’ll be able foresee and stop problems before they happen. Whether it’s monitoring your social feeds, customer service eMail inbox or analyzing reviews and purchase trends, your connection will help identify issues and stay ahead of problems. Magento offers a lot of flexibility and tools to help monitor and resolve issues. A Magento merchant grows from exceeding customers’ needs – not by ignoring and capitalizing on them.
3. Defined Customers = Right Customers
Analyzing and defining your target customers needs and purchasing behaviors is critical for building a strong customer following. As a merchant, you need to know who you’re marketing to, what motivates them, and why your brand is right for them. Analyzing tools like market research, customer reviews, and even your analytics (we can certainly help you with that) will give you the opportunity to listen to your audience directly and refine your customer personas. As a Magento merchant, find out everything possible about your audience – make your efforts more efficient.
Understanding the importance of building your brand and customer following is critical to your success not only as a Magento merchant, but as an entrepreneur and business owner. The Magento platform is a robust tool that when used correctly, is critical for building the success of your magento store and customers.
Stay tuned for the next article we have planned that will discuss our favorite Magento extensions and tools we use to help our clients build their businesses.
Interested in growing your customer following?
We’ve helped plenty of merchants over the years through their Magento site and marketing strategy. Contact us to learn more about how we can help you build your brand!